Miracle Turtle Babies: How 8 Hatchlings Were Born In Peterborough
/Peterborough-based Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre posted this extraordinary, beautiful story on their Facebook page about hatchlings born from a Blanding's turtle. The post is getting hundreds of shares for good reason. Here it is re-posted below, along with the photos from their Facebook page post:
"One of our recovering Blanding's turtles has a story to tell... She was hit by a car in June, 2016 and brought in by a biologist from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry who is doing a study on Blanding's turtles. This Blanding's is doing well and will be released sometime this year."
"She had a clutch of eggs that was harvested and incubated from June to August, resulting in 7 healthy hatchlings."
"What is more surprising is that on January 17th, one of our volunteers found that she had laid another ten eggs in the water!! They were quickly gathered and put into an incubator. Much to our surprise, in March, eight of the eggs hatched!"
"How is this possible? Female Blanding's turtles can store sperm for years! Males and females don't hang out all that much, so the gals get what they need and take it with them. True story."
This shows the difference in size between the hatchlings from her first clutch (on the left) and those from her second clutch (on the right).
